With former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop in place as Nokia CEO and former Microsoft veteran Chris Weber recently christened as the President of Nokia US, Matt Drance hits the nail on the head.

I have absolutely no qualms about calling this new regime at Nokia a puppet government. This is far and away the most brilliant move of Ballmer’s tenure. Whether it pays off is another question entirely.

Considering that Microsoft had at one point considered acquiring Nokia, the recent turn of events couldn’t have turned out better for Redmond. With HP now focusing on WebOS, Microsoft lost one of its most important and profit-generating licensees. In their stead comes Nokia, a company with a knack for hardware and led by a Microsoft insider.

Well played, Ballmer. Well played.

Meanwhile, Elop denied, somewhat comically, that he was a Trojan Horse during a Q&A session on Sunday at the Mobile World Congress.

“The obvious answer is no. We made sure that the entire management team was involved in the process, and of course the board of directors of Nokia are the only ones that can make this significant of a decision about Nokia. They made that final decision on Thursday night.”

Fair points, but calling Elop a Trojan Horse is a red herring. No matter, Microsoft may be back in the game, though we’ll have to wait and see how long it takes before Windows Phone 7 equipped Nokia handsets start flooding the market. Microsoft is desperately trying to catch up to Apple and Google and this was exactly the kind of move they needed to make. Whether or not it’s too little too late is something we’ll find out soon enough.